Race Report: Central European Enduro Round 2

GIANT ENDURO TRAILS 2018 BIELSKO-BIALA

The first stop on the Central European Enduro Series was in Kálnica (part of the big Bikefest event) which is very popular riding spot in Slovakia. The race was held in beautiful lush hills of Povážský Inovec that brought superb conditions for racing with nice views. There were around 400 racers ready at the first starting gate. It was a great start of Central European Enduro 2018.

After a sunny weekend, the Central European Enduro moved to Poland. The Giant Enduro Trails event was held on 1-2nd June in the Beskid Mountains that surround the city of Bielsko-Biala. The race was located between Szyndzielnia and Kozia Gora mountains. It consisted of four special stages with more than 1.6km of combined vertical drop and nearly 25 minutes of racing time for the fastest rider.

For the first and the longest stage of the race, new trail from the top of Szyndzielnia was designed. The whole stage lasted more than 10 minutes for the majority of riders (only few went below that margin) and was quite devastating physically: slippery roots and moist loam of the new, relatively flat upper section, combined with very steep and rocky middle section of the trail called “Dziabar” and very fast bottom part of the “Gondola” trail.

On the sections known from recent races (like the flowy “Dembowiec” trail, technical “Cygan” and very fast “DH+” trail), few things were changed here and there, marking it in an unexpected way to diminish the obvious advantage of the locals (sorry guys!). Early June weather traditionally made the race even more “attractive”, although the day was mostly sunny a very short storm hit just before the stage 3 making the fresh vegetation, moist dirt, loam, rocks and roots looking even more spectacular – briefly, it was beautiful yet definitely not an easy day!

Demanding and tricky conditions made racing dramatic but fierce indeed, leaving many racers separated by mere tenths of a second after the whole long day of racing and quite a few who did not make it to the finish. See the results here and here.

Next stop is going to be Enduro Gradec in Austria. Which is held in the hills around a beautiful city of Graz. Another great venue to enjoy racing, beautiful nature and views, just everything you need to experience a proper enduro race. All of the Central European Enduro Races are EWS Qualifier, so do not hesitate and maybe you can try EWS race in the future.